It looks like those multiple extra over-the-air 24-hour weather channels may get some other use on free over the air digital television...long track speed skating, short track speed skating, cycling, ice hockey, marathons, track and field, even curling.

I've been yapping about UniversalSports.com and noticing that commentary was added to some of their raw internet feeds later, so that was a sign that the Universal Sports television channel was starting to roll out. I got an email today from Universal Sports, addressed to WCSN@... so I know the transferred me over when NBC bought out WCSN. We're just internet slaves and "serfs."

So the big announcement today was that folk in Raleigh can now catch the television broadcasts (usually same day, delayed after the raw feed...I assume the delay is for the commentators to add their voice-over, production to generate graphics, highlights, transitions and insert commercials, all that).

In Raleigh, you might try digital over-the-air 17.2 or Time Warner
218 (I'll be up adjusting the antenna if I can get this channel!).

We need to support this, and we need to get Inline Speed Skating
(indoor and outdoor, especially marathon and ultra-marathon) and Inline
Hockey into those lists of sports. How do we do that?

I think
cycling has a good chance as the participants grow into being more like
the audience for golf in terms of age and affluence (and as the cost of
their gear goes upward enough to make advertising and sponsorship
worthwhile).We'll see.

This will get ruined I'm sure, like every other specialty channel, but for now, let's enjoy some sports we love and don't even know much about. How great to have a human-powered, gravity sports international competitions channel! Later on it will be reality show crap, game show crap, and nothing like the original concept, so I refuse to get too excited. Maybe they'll add indoor cow-powered sports like the "outdoor life" channed (now versus, as in man versus bull, man versus fish, man versus hills on a bike now and then).

But maybe, just maybe, there's enough money in sports gear now to make this work? Probably not. So get it while it's good.

Regardless, the universalsports.com website is really great, and there is a ton of speed skating up there to watch, along with video from other sports competitions too. Check it out sometime.

They just added the on-demand packages for Tour of the Basque Country (Vuelta Ciclista al País Vasco) Stages 4 and 5. Here's the videos page, and we're talking hour and a half videos in some cases, plus shorter highlight packages, like speed skating record breaking or medal winning performances...

See television events scheduled here (includes NBC and some not quite olympic sports, like poker; I edited out NBC from my list below)...here's a sampling of the tv schedule (not the same as the online schedule, which is usually a raw feed first, then sometimes a commented presentation later, after the tv broadcast).

I called WXII-TV channel 12 in Winston-Salem and got some information as I tried to tell them why to carry the Giro d'Italia and the whole Universal Sports lineup on their extra channel. They're killing the digital 12.2 channel's affiliation with NBC and that means WeatherPlus will go away in June, to be replaced by movies of some sort. I told them I can go rent a movie for $1 but I can't go get live Olympic and gravity and human-powered sports at the rental store. I mentioned how much money cyclists put into their gear, and skiiers, and how generally affluent and active they are. I mentioned that their target market is often involved in extreme sports as well as other outdoor non-motorized sports. I mentioned that we see Olympic sports every four years on NBC, but then between the Olympics, we can barely see any of these same sports. I mentioned the International Hockey Championships that had the USA playing Russia and Canada versus Sweden in the semis, all available live by free over the air television if they picked up Universal Sports. With all the interest in running and in travel, I mentioned the Rome and London marathons had recently been shown on Universal Sports. I tried. As it stands, it looks like we won't be getting Universal Sports in the Triad, whereas the Triangle has it, and so does Atlanta. Arrgh! Oh well, back to the good old internet and UniversalSports.com and other sites that stream some of this stuff.